Julie's June Reads

Personal development (or PD) is so huge for me! I started reading PD books and attending seminars a few years ago and so much has changed for me since then. And if you're a coach on my team or in my #BabeSquad community then you also know that I constantly stress the importance of it. Because of this, each month I'm going to be sharing what I've read to help give you ideas! So here are my June reads...

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Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini ​

LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! Seriously. You need to get it now! This book is filled with SO much valuable (and useable!) information on how to stop your inner mean girl from ruining your life and how to become "wildly wealthy, fabulously healthy and bursting with love". I listened to the audible version while driving (where I do most of my PD) and found myself screen shoting constantly so I could go back and relisten when I wasn't driving so I could take notes. In this book, Melissa covers everything from taking care of yourself by what you put in your body, limiting negative self talk, playing the victim and having pity dance parties and living your truth. Her Love vs. Fear quiz is great and so are her tips for dealing with being overwhelmed. This is definitely going to be a book I reread multiple times. My ONLY complaint was that Melissa references "find this on my website" quite frequently... and I could never find anything on her site. Then a friend showed me where to find everything on Melissa's other website, Mastering Your Mean Girl. 

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The Happy Stepmother by Rachelle Katz

I'm just going to be real... I had a serious love/hate thing going on while listening to this book and even turned it off once while I was driving and getting annoyed with it. First let me start with a disclaimer... I'm SUPER new to the role of stepmom and have not been fully immersed in this new lifestyle by any means, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I haven't "been there, done that" yet. But, as I'm stepping into this new role, I've been seeking out some of the most positive stepmom friends I have to find out what resources they can recommend, and this was on the list of suggested reads. My biggest goal as a stepmom is to not fuck things up, it's that simple, so I want to be as prepared as I can be going into this! 

Love: The biggest thing I loved about this book is how Rachelle talks about adjusting your expectations. I think this is such an important thing in life in general. Stop expecting people to act the way you want them to. It's never going to happen. This book also gave me some ideas on situations I could possibly expect that I hadn't thought of before (along with some I don't foresee happening, like a cracked out ex-wife). She has some great tips at the end on how to create a family feel and how important it is to take care of yourself first. If you're not taking care of yourself, you can't take care of others. This is not only physically through fitness and nutrition, but mentally by surrounding yourself with others who are going through the same things you are. One of my friends has a private facebook group for positive stepmoms that I've already been able to get a lot of value out of. (Notice I said "positive"... just like any mom group on facebook, or any niche group really, there are going to be some you mesh better with. I'm not looking for a group where everyone bitches about their significant other's ex-wife or how horrible their situation is. I want something that is solution based and will give me the tools to help create the best coparenting situation possible.)

Hate: Again, I'm new to this whole stepmom thing, so my views may change, but here I go... There were some really off comments made that made me feel pretty uneasy. Comments about how your role should be that of a babysitter or aunt and your spouse should have to tell the kids to respect you each time he leaves... then in the next breath a comment about feeling left out because the kids didn't see you as part of the family. There was talk of kids (especially teens) acting out and it was implied that it was because of the stepparent situation. Same with kids not cleaning up after themselves... like they purposely weren't cleaning up because they didn't like or respect the stepmom. While I'm sure there are instances where this is the case, I also remember being a kid and I'm pretty sure that almost all kids act like that at some point, not just stepkids. There was even mention of a stepmom feeling awkward hanging pics of the kids in her home. That just didn't sit well with me. My goal is to make their environment as welcoming and comfortable for them as possible. I couldn't imagine saying no to hanging pics of them on the walls. And there was a lot of talk of just removing yourself from the situation completely (which I cannot imagine that making the kids feel loved and nurtured at all), mention of the kids "ruining" the stepmom's weekends when they were at the house, things like that. 

I think for me, I was also looking something with more real world tips than a personal growth book (don't get me wrong, I love personal growth books). This book did get good reviews on Amazon, but I have to agree with the few negative ones that I read. 

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The Art of Procrastination by John Perry 

Just don't. 

I'll totally admit it, I'm a procrastinator. I can be super motivated (like sometimes too much... I get hyper focus something fierce, I'll blame it on the ADHD) IF I'm doing something I like. I have to be having fun. Give me something to do that I don't want to and I can find every reason not to do it, so I was really looking forward to this book. 

It's super short, about 90 minutes, and I listened to it in one day in the car. There were times where I was like "What the fuck is this guy talking about?" It was like he just wanted to hear himself talk... rambling on and on about different song titles, to do lists that included "get out of bed" and "go to the bathroom" and I don't even know what else because I started to tune him out.

I'm not sure if this book was intended to be a joke or not, but the basis of it is to make procrastinators feel better about themselves and justify their procrastination. The only value came in an appendix in the last 11 minutes of the book where the author actually gave some simple tips to help control your procrastination. This book actually got 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon and I'd bet the majority of those that reviewed it were people looking for an excuse (and validation) to not get their work done.

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July reads...

Here are just a few of the books that are on my list to read in July, so be on the lookout for my reviews the first week of August! 

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If you've read anything lately that you loved and think I need to read, be sure to let me know! 

Xoxo
​Peace, Love, Glitter & F Bombs